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Evaluation of Autonomous Vehicle Technology for Transit 2016 Update

Enormous strides are being made in the development of automated vehicle (AV) technologies. Each day brings a new news story of some breakthrough development or announcement from an automobile manufacturer or technology company. A robust discussion is taking place in the transit and transportation communities about the future implications for public transit agencies and the concept of “mobility management”, “Smart Cities” and “management on demand”.
The U.S. Department of Transportation is investing heavily in the areas of connected vehicles (CV) in the broad areas of vehicle to vehicle (V2V) and vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) communications and applications. In the area of public transportation, there have been on-going investigations into retrofitting transit buses with emerging automated vehicle devices to evaluate potential implications on safety improvements and operator acceptance of and ability to deal with the devices. While there has been investment and testing of autonomous transit shuttles and pods in areas outside the US, only recently have any of these vehicles been tested in US markets.
In January 2015, the National Center for Transit Research completed a report on the state of automated vehicle (AV) technology as it pertains to transit. The report was entitled “Evaluation of Automated Vehicle Technology for Transit”. It found that the operational use of AV technology by transit agencies in the U.S. was limited to a few prototypes. Furthermore, it found that, with one exception, there were no immediate plans by bus manufacturers to add AV technology to their vehicles. In the one year since that report was published, there have been new developments in the realm of automated transit so that an updated report is warranted.